I read an open letter "A letter to my husband's ex girlfriend" and I wanted to give it a reply.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/jul/09/letter-to-husbands-ex-girlfriend
For five years, you were in a relationship with the man who is now my husband. I met him long after you and he had broken up. Your break-up with him happened in a cruel way; he told me the story of that, and his guilt about it, very soon after I met him.
As time went on, and he and I grew closer, I was always aware of his remorse over having hurt you so badly. Having been hurt myself in the past I had a lot of sympathy, even empathy, for you, when you sent emotional emails and letters. I wanted to write to you, to say the thing that had finally allowed me to recover after my own failed relationship: that it's not about you, it's about the fact that he didn't love you enough.
I never did write to you. Partly, I felt intimidated by the fact that you are a published writer. But I still wished that I could find a way to tell you that it wasn't worth spending years of your life yearning for someone who didn't love you enough to treat you well.
When you asked my husband, before he married me, to spend a day with you giving you closure, allowing the two of you to forgive each other and find peace, he was very reluctant to agree. I, on the other hand, wishing I'd had any such thing in the past, encouraged him to say yes, thinking it would help you to deal with the pain of the separation, and enable you to look forward to future relationships, without believing you had lost your only possible soulmate. So he went ahead and although emotional for both of you, and he revisited his guilt, it seemed to me worth doing.
So I felt I had been on your side, for as long as I had known of what had happened between you and my husband. In the past few months, though, I have almost lost any sympathy.
As a professional writer, you have chosen to write a book that is not just about the break-up, but the intimate, secret details of your relationship, details lovers would never normally share with even their closest friends. Yet you are choosing to tell it all to anyone who reads your book. Too much information, as my teenage daughter would say, though I desperately hope she will not read what you say about her new stepfather, who has come into her life as well as into mine. The day you spent with him has been used not as a source of peace, but as just another chapter in your book.
I had the chance to read your book, but chose not to. I know that there is nothing that you can tell me about my husband; nothing that his relationship with you can tell me about his relationship with me. This is because he loves me, with all his heart – and although he did love you, he didn't love you enough.
I do still feel sorry for you. I think it will be even more difficult for you to move into new relationships, having made this one the subject of your professional as well as your personal life. And I hope you enjoy the feeling of revenge the book will give you.
Please just remember that by breaking the contract of privacy between ex-lovers, you are also hurting new relationships and families, who have done you no wrong.
Obviously my reply pertains to specific peculiarities in my situation, but being an open letter which seems to address all and sundry, an answer to it has the license to take up specific facts from the answerer's specific situation? writing this gave me a sense of release rather that an agonising gnawing frustration when I read things like this that i'm not able to respond to in kind. Perhaps you may be able to relate??
here goes...
For five years, you were in a relationship with the man who is now my husband
> It sounds like smug gloating, rubbing it in anyways continue...
I met him long after you and he had broken up. Your break-up with him happened in a cruel way; he told me the story of that, and his guilt about it, very soon after I met him.
> HE needed to tell me not you. After 15 years i am still yearning to hear it. I need to hear him tell me. What was he doing sharing private details about our life with you anyway? If its ok to, then I would like to know certain private details of your life from him too.
As time went on, and he and I grew closer, I was always aware of his remorse over having hurt you so badly. Having been hurt myself in the past I had a lot of sympathy, even empathy, for you, when you sent emotional emails and letters.
> Then you should have responded to me directly, to express your empathy and made him do his duty to talk to me and tell me the things I needed to hear and still need to hear. If I were in your place that is what I would have done. I had done it before I met him and after. I have healed many lives.
I wanted to write to you, to say the thing that had finally allowed me to recover after my own failed relationship: that it's not about you, it's about the fact that he didn't love you enough.
> Is that it? You need to understand it's not about his love for me, this is about my experience. Sorry to say but I am the centre of the story here, not him. I am due acknowledgement, acceptance and respect and to be treated as per that. That is what its really all about.
I never did write to you. Partly, I felt intimidated by the fact that you are a published writer.
> excuses *tsk* you didnt write to me because you could get away with not writing to me.
But I still wished that I could find a way to tell you that it wasn't worth spending years of your life yearning for someone who didn't love you enough to treat you well.
> How offensive of you to think of me as weak and stupid! This was NEVER acceptable to me. Hence the reason why I ended our relationship. He was too afraid to tell me himself so I had to raise the issue myself and give him the choice to stay or leave. He chose to leave. I accepted it gracefully. I let him go to his freedom at the time when I wanted that relationship to work out more than anything else I have ever wanted in my life ever before or since (and I could have easily held on to him and not let him go - most women in my place would have done that). But I relinquished him to his freedom as the ultimate gift of love. Yes i'm a martyr. I DID make the ultimate sacrifice. I did it out of compassion, so that he could find happiness in his life, the same happiness that i found, that came to me through him and which I so desperately wanted him to have, but wasn't able give to him back then.
When you asked my husband, before he married me, to spend a day with you giving you closure, allowing the two of you to forgive each other and find peace, he was very reluctant to agree. I, on the other hand, wishing I'd had any such thing in the past, encouraged him to say yes, thinking it would help you to deal with the pain of the separation, and enable you to look forward to future relationships, without believing you had lost your only possible soulmate. So he went ahead and although emotional for both of you, and he revisited his guilt, it seemed to me worth doing.
> I would have done the same as you had I been in your place. However nothing changes the fact that I have lost my only possible soulmate. I swear to god in the last 15 years i have never once begrudged you for a second you being with him not for a second. It was through my own choice, I let him go. It was the best thing I have ever done. I'm devastated that it;s not understood or given the due respect by him, but it is still the truth. I wish he wasn't my only chance and for years I expected to find love again. I didn't. It took a lot of courage to finally admit that there wasn't going to be anyone else in my life and that I had only two choices - to live with integrity to that truth in my life or to compromise and live a fake life and be unfair not only to myself but also to the person I would have compromised my life with. having been lucky enough to experience true love in my life, I consider it my henceforth duty to never compromise, or keep another from the chance possibility of finding true love in their lives - they may not be as unlucky as me!
So I felt I had been on your side, for as long as I had known of what had happened between you and my husband. In the past few months, though, I have almost lost any sympathy.
> Thanks for your generosity (sarcasm) I hope it made you feel better (sarcasm). After getting the man you wanted and everything else, while I sacrificed and yet was left with nothing not even due respect, you still want to adorn the mantle of the 'blameless good guy" ? ...so much greed.... do you think that after 'having it all' it may be possible to live with being 'less than perfect' while the other party has lost EVERYTHING (which you have gained) ??
As a professional writer, you have chosen to write a book that is not just about the break-up, but the intimate, secret details of your relationship, details lovers would never normally share with even their closest friends. Yet you are choosing to tell it all to anyone who reads your book. Too much information, as my daughter would say, though I desperately hope she will not read what you say about her father, who has part of her life as well as mine. The day you spent with him has been used not as a source of peace, but as just another chapter in your book.
> The intimate secrets of our relationship had already been raped and savaged by him into meaninglessness by him from the moment he started treating me with contempt and disrespect and refused to communicate to me about us and our shared past. From the moment me and the greatest part of my life ie. my love for him was dismissed and ignored, the intimate secret details about our relationship were dishonoured. By opening myself up to all and sundry, by displaying my nakedness to the world, I choose to take back control. This is on my terms. I have nothing to hide and nothing to be ashamed of. That is why I can display my nakedness for all to see. It takes a lot of courage and real integrity in order to be able to do this.
I had the chance to read your book, but chose not to.
> Its always easier to avoid than to face something that would challenge you, force you take a long hard look, in short live for a few moments feeling a fraction of what i am compelled to agonisingly feel at a torturous intensity constantly for the every moment of my life. (btw interesting you make so many accusations without even having bothered to read...?? )
I know that there is nothing that you can tell me about my husband; nothing that his relationship with you can tell me about his relationship with me.
> It was never my intention to tell you anything about him and you. But can you face the real truth and all the sordid details about his relationship with me? About our deep love for each other and about the intensity of our passion? Which you keep attempting to twist the knife into by telling me what you have with him is something he never had with me?
For my part I have no curiosity or desire to know a thing about you and him, the simple reason is because the most important part of his life to me is the part that he shared with me, and of that part, I am the sole and only expert. and I need nothing better than that!
But I am not threatened at all so you are welcome share your secrets with me and the world and I would happily read it without any fear or insecurity. If you have nothing to hide and are not ashamed then display yourself the way I have done. But I doubt you will be able to.
This is because he loves me, with all his heart – and although he did love you, he didn't love you enough.
> One either loves or doesn't. Its your euphemistic way of saying that he didn't love me. You needn't be so euphemistic. If it's your opinion that he didn't love me then you can say it straight. The torture I with every moment is far more painful than a statement like that. In fact I wont even try to debate it. All I will say is that in my life, he is the one who loved me like no other. He got through to me when he followed his heart, and the power of this changed my life and transformed me like no other. It is the best thing that has ever happened to me. .
I do still feel sorry for you. I think it will be even more difficult for you to move into new relationships, having made this one the subject of your professional as well as your personal life.
> Well you should feel sorry for me for the suffering I have been put through in life by being ignored, avoided and disrespected. But the centre and meaning in my life is that experience and its eternal significance. Him, our relationship, the love and happiness I experienced and my ultimate act of love/sacrifice/martyrdom which defines me and my existence - this IS what dominates my life as it is. To make it my professional life too only enhances the truth and integrity in my life.
In other words pubicising it doesn't change anything as this fact already rules my life whether I coose to publicise it or not. Me hiding it would only serve to make your lives simpler by letting you continue to avoid facing the truth while I am isolated in a locked prison suffering torture, denied a voice and forced to suffer in silence not allowed to share my my pain with anyone in order to lighten the load a bit. umm how greedy are you again??.....
And as i said before, he remains my one and only soulmate (no one more than me wishes it weren't so but unfortunately it is)
And I hope you enjoy the feeling of revenge the book will give you.
> Probably not as much as you are enjoying dishing out your poison to me who is the already devastated victim, by trying to make me suffer even more on top of my unbearable agony, while you have it all anyway??
Please just remember that by breaking the contract of privacy between ex-lovers, you are also hurting new relationships and families, who have done you no wrong.
> The intimate secrets of our relationship had already been violated and ravaged into meaninglessness by him from the moment he put up the stone wall and unjustifiably refused to communicate any longer with me or about us and our shared past. The moment me and the best of my life ie. my love for him was dismissed and ignored, the intimate secret details about our relationship had been dishonoured already.
Btw, I did not deserve to be ravaged and violated not least because I had done no wrong, but even more so because I had actually sacrificed my happiness to that he could have everything he wanted. Since you say ' well too bad I was hurt now its time to move on' do remember I could care less about anyone else who may be hurt by this when apparently my hurt is trivial and dismissable by all. I am as blameless as they. even more so, as I am owed respect for my actions as everything you have today is due to me and my sacrifice. You should be worshipping the ground I walk on for the rest of your life in gratitude for the favour I have done which has most of all benefitted you more than anyone else.
Also, I have not hurt anyone, any new families etc that you accuse me of it is an empty unfounded accusation which even if true does not compare to the devastation that I live with every moment of my life.
